Tag: Assault on Florida
Florida Gov. Rick Scott Reads Ad Lib about Obama and Teleprompters from a Teleprompter
I have to admit, I was a little nervous when I looked out here. I saw all the TV cameras and a teleprompter. I figured President Obama must be here — giving another speech about raising taxes!
– Florida Gov. Rick Scott (GOPT), who actually read this lame quip from a teleprompter, according to a reporter in the room. The punchline was underlined to remind the governor to play it for laughs.
GOP Florida Sen. Rubio: Social Security ‘Weakened Us As a People’
Part of the series, Assault on Florida.Via Digby:
RUBIO: These programs actually weakened us as a people. You see, almost forever, it was institutions in society that assumed the role of taking care of one another. If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them. If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them. You saved for your retirement and your future because you had to. We took these things upon ourselves in our communities, our families, and our homes, and our churches and our synagogues. But all that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities. All of a sudden, for an increasing number of people in our nation, it was no longer necessary to worry about saving for security because that was the government’s job.
Isn’t that nice? If only we could go back to the days of Ward and June Cleaver when everyone took care of each other and didn’t need things like money or health insurance when they got old and sick and couldn’t work. Back in the good old days everyone took care of the poor and there was no suffering or pain. It was one big happy family. Except, of course, that’s just crap.
Think Progress reports:
[P]rior to Medicare’s enactment in 1965, “about one-half of America’s seniors did not have hospital insurance,” “more than one in four elderly were estimated to go without medical care due to cost concerns,” and one in three seniors were living in poverty. Today, nearly all seniors have access to affordable health care and only about 14 percent of seniors are below the poverty line.
Did Deputies Bar Dems from Gov’s Budget Signing on Orders from the Florida GOP?
Part of the series, Assault on Florida.
Who ordered Sumter County, Fla., deputies to prevent Democrats from attending GOP Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s budget-signing event in the public square at The Villages, a retirement community, on May 26?
And why did the deputies wade into the crowd assembled at the square and confiscate what a Miami Herald reporter described as “anti-Scott signs and liberal-looking pins” on orders from people the Herald reporter identified as “staffers and Republican operatives?”
Fla. Gov. Rick Scott’s Big Government Program to Drug Test State Workers Could Cost Taxpayers $23.5 Mil Per Year
Part of the series, Assault on Florida.
Last week, Florida’s already wildly unpopular new Republican governor, Rick Scott, issued an executive order requiring state employees to submit to drug tests at least four times a year.
Last night, Rachel Maddow cited Scott’s order to illustrate the wide gap between Republican campaign rhetoric about small government and the sort of big-government policies they pursue when they get elected.
“Floridians deserve to know that those in public service, whose salaries are paid with taxpayer dollars, are part of a drug-free workplace,” Scott said, when he announced the order. “Just as it is appropriate to screen those seeking taxpayer assistance, it is also appropriate to screen government employees.”
Scott has only lived in Florida for a few years and so was not in the state in 1998 when an earlier government experiment with drug-testing poor people proved not to be cost-effective. At a cost of $90 per test, the program was zilched after it failed to produce evidence of widespread drug abuse among people on public assistance.
Who will be tested, when and how often?
Here’s the key paragraph from Scott’s Executive Order Number 11-58 [PDF]:
Assault on Florida: Tallahassee Hijinks of the Week Ending March 25
Part of the series, Assault on Florida.
It’s only been in session for three weeks, but Florida’s Republican Legislature is in full swing and our new governor is feeling his beans. Here’s a roundup of state politics from this week:
- Gov. Rick Scott signed his first bill into law, eliminating tenure for new teachers and tying teacher contracts and pay to student performance.
- In related news, the Senate’s education budget cuts about $1 billion from classrooms, dropping the average funding level of $6,811 per pupil to about $6,388. Also, teachers, would have to start contributing about 3 percent of their wages to their retirements, which will amount to about $678.6 million less in state spending on public pension benefits for teachers.
- In related news, Gov. Scott urged lawmakers to promote charter schools, and they responded with a bill that would require school districts to enter into a contract with charters approved by community colleges or universities.
- In related news, Education Commissioner Eric Smith suddenly announced his resignation on Monday, citing the fact that Scott had not met with him since Scott’s inauguration.
Assault On Florida: Does Deregulation Increase Freedom or Danger?
Part of the series, Assault on Florida.
This is the first installment in an ongoing series, “Assault On Florida,” that chronicles Rick Scott’s disastrous tenure as governor and the antics of the Republican-dominated state legislature.
Buried in an article in the South Florida Business Journal that ran Tuesday was a whole list of businesses that stand to be deregulated if House Bill HB 5005 passes.
The bill seeks to deregulate dozens of industries by deleting provisions establishing the Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s oversight of dozens of occupations and professions. Some businesses — not to mention us consumers — are concerned that the lack of regulation could lead to practices that could tarnish the image of some industries (and screw consumers). Here are the professions and occupations listed in the House bill for which regulation by the state would end:
Yacht and ship brokers, auctioneers, talent agencies, community association managers, athlete agents, employee leasing companies, home inspectors, mold assessors and remediators, professional surveyors and mappers, persons practicing hair braiding, hair wrapping, or body wrapping; interior designers, landscape architects, professional geologists, professional fundraising consultants and solicitors, water vending machines and operators, health studios, ballroom dance studios, commercial telephone sellers and salespersons, movers and moving brokers, certain outdoor theaters, certain business opportunities, motor vehicle repair shops, sellers of travel, contracts with sales representatives involving commissions, and, strangely, television picture tubes.
